Action Figures Sold Separately: Deleted Scenes
by lembas7
Summary: Deleted Scenes from my longer story, Action Figures Sold Separately.
1. Sitwell's Report

**Disclaimer:** Fair Use, Transformative Work.

 **A/N:** These are deleted scenes from my longer story, "Action Figures Sold Separately." Where possible, I've excerpted from that story to orient readers to where the deleted scene came from.

* * *

 **DELETED SCENE 1: SITWELL's REPORT**

* * *

 _"Hell's Kitchen." Jasper tilted his head. "If you're headed out there, leave Lola in the garage. And take a few extra clips." Convenient as it might be to have a less observant boss, Coulson at least recognized competence and was Jasper's fastest opportunity for advancement._

 _"I intend to." Coulson met his eyes for a moment. "The Director wants a report at 0600."_ Which really means that the Director wants Rogers back here by 0600. _"Call me when you find something_."

* * *

"What's the rundown." Seated at his desk – which was suspiciously clear of paperwork – Fury didn't bother looking over from the computer screen projected across the far wall.

Jasper swallowed, working spit up to wet his tongue. "Tracker 926541. Out of all the options, it looks like this one stayed with him the longest."

"Where was it picked up?"

"On the steps of the New York Supreme Court, fifty-three minutes ago."

 _That_ got a reaction; Fury settled back in his chair, fingers steepled, eye on Jasper. "Why the delay?"

"Traffic." He was _not_ sweating.

"At 00:17 on a Thursday morning." Fury closed his eye momentarily.

 _Welcome to New York._ In front of Coulson, he might have said it. Now? _I like my head where it is, thanks._ Employment was also better than not.

Fury didn't bother to hide his sigh. "Run through the list. I want all equipment accounted for, and cross-referenced back to the map."

 _In detail, then._ "Sir." Jasper cleared his throat, checking the printout carefully. _Twelve hours to piece together forty minutes._ And that timeline would probably be the only thing standing between certain agents and unemployment, once Fury got the full report. _And the reason for firing a few others; none of which will be me._ "Rogers escaped from the 7th Avenue entrance to SHIELD Headquarters at approximately 11:38:54 hours, proceeding west and south until he reached Lennie's Park'n'Go at 10th and 21st at approximately 11:56:27 hours. At this point we lost Tracker 375528, which was recovered in pieces. Initial assessment is that it got crushed."

"We'll have to ask whether that was accidental or not."

"There were birds in the air at 11:41:44. You deployed with several teams on the ground at 11:43:02. Birds were recalled at 11:57:29 due to an increasing number of calls to the FAA and 9-1-1. The recall of all STRIKE teams went into effect at 12:06:48, except yours, which cleared Lennie's Park'n'Go by 12:13:37."

Fury leant back in his chair. "And in the meantime, Rogers was dropping the trackers as fast as he could."

"Yes, sir." And this was where it was going to get complicated; Jasper kept his eyes on the tablet's stream of data. "As far as we can tell, he got rid of Trackers 928348, 129573, 387153, 238584, 213565 and 430572 within the first five minutes after the cluster at Lennie's Park'n'Go started to move again at 12:03:05."

"Six minutes to find eighteen trackers that took hours to place." Fury shook his head. "Which begs the question: How did he know they were even there?"

"I'll put it on the list," Jasper muttered.

"You were saying."

"928348 and 129573 were recovered from taxis," he continued, fingers swiping the tablet screen past a series of written reports in favor of the chart one panicked individual had put together in hopes of saving their job. "The power source for 129573 failed more than three hours earlier than anticipated, which complicated the retrieval. But the driver remembered a tall guy, in a white t-shirt, hailing his cab, opening the door, and then changing his mind. Thought he was crazy to be dressed like that, in this weather, and deciding to walk."

"At least something went according to plan," Fury muttered.

"The driver of the cab where 928348 was recovered never saw anyone matching Rogers' description. Best the agent on the ground could determine, Rogers probably tossed the tracker through an opened window while the driver was pulled up to the curb for a smoke break."

"Huh."

"387153, 238584, 213565 and 430572 were recovered from a Trader Joe's cloth grocery bag, a left rain boot, a Coach purse, and a closed umbrella, respectively. Their owners were passersby, no connection. Only the woman with the rain boots remembered seeing Rogers, because he crouched down to deal with his shoelace and a few minutes later she had a pebble in her shoe." _In the concrete jungle of Manhattan._

Jasper had been in deserts wetter than Fury's tone. "What a coincidence."

Some people really were too stupid to be allowed to reproduce. "Between 12:08 and 12:14 he got rid of trackers 874650, 442957, 736935, 600124, 629472, and 905247."

"More oblivious pedestrians?"

"Not completely." One more glance at the paper. "874650 was in a coat pocket; 442957 was pulled from a busker's guitar case; 600124 was in a stroller; and 736935 was probably in a dump truck before it stopped signaling."

"Crushed?"

"Most likely. But unravelling 629472 and 905247 took some time. Initially they took off on a path together, travelling around fifteen miles an hour. Thirty minutes or so uptown, their speed slowed and the two split; 629472 stayed stationary at one location and 905247 resumed travelling at the previous speed, heading back toward the financial district."

"And?"

"Bike messenger and package," Jasper said. "Which he pulled off without the messenger seeing him." He couldn't help the rueful shake of his head. "He's good, sir." _The stories are true; well, true enough._ No wonder Pierce was keeping such a close eye on this particular aspect of Fury's Initiative.

"The last four were difficult to parse, because they seemed to disperse at the same time. 792438 was in the back of a delivery van. 408132 and 219645 both used the same type of power source as 129573, but before they also prematurely failed, they stopped moving; both were recovered at the same site, in an alley that also is on the path 926541 continued on from."

"I want the route."

"Here, sir." Jasper handed over his tablet, where all routes had been mapped and timestamped on a map of Manhattan that was almost detailed enough to pick out individual cockroaches in the gutters. A few swipes grayed out the irrelevant paths, highlighting the route 926541 had registered in their computers.

"What's this?" Fury's hand hovered over three areas shaded red.

"Hot zones," Jasper replied. "Those are points where the GPS pinged more than once and registered the same location. Which means that the GPS was stationary at that location from anywhere between three and six minutes. The final retrieval point was excluded; the tracker sat there for almost eight hours."

"I want the specs for each tracker, and reports from the developers in Sci-Tech who designed each prototype."

"Developer, sir." Jasper accepted the tablet back.

"What?"

"Just one. Leo Fitz."

Fury _hmmph_ ed, contemplating. After a moment, "Add him to your team for this project."

"Yes, sir."


	2. Rumlow's Call

**DELETED SCENE 2: RUMLOW's CALL**

* * *

All viable options involved time lost to waiting. _Except I just got authorization and orders to use all search time as effectively as possible._ He hadn't gotten where he was today by being ineffective.

* * *

" _Report."_

He didn't bother to double-check his surrounds; the room was secure, or he wouldn't have made the call. "Nothing yet. Rogers is still loose. Fury's only got one lead, and it's cold."

 _"What is it?"_

"Two man law-firm, with a secretary, that started up this year. Rogers was here yesterday, and they probably know where he went. None of them are talking."

 _"He ended up there after you lost him."_

Blood seeped onto his tongue from the raw slice on the inside of his cheek where his teeth had split the flesh yesterday. _Order only comes through pain._ "Yes, sir."

 _"What law firm?"_

"Nelson & Murdock."

 _"Never heard of it."_

"They're green, sir. Just admitted to the bar in November of last year."

 _"Not a threat, then."_

"Coulson's been blocked by them. Twice."

Condescension thickened the silence emanating from the other end of the call. _"If he hasn't put a watch on them yet, institute one from your end. They know where Rogers is, sooner or later they'll lead us to him."_

It was _later_ that was the problem. "Sir, we're coming up on twenty-four hours since his escape."

 _"Yes,"_ his superior hissed. _"And in that time he's already put your probationary team out of commission and made contact with a law firm."_

He'd heard this man speak in that tone before – right before someone died. Excuses got men killed. So did promises they couldn't keep.

Rumlow bit his tongue, hard.

 _"Reacquire the target. Before SHIELD."_

That gave him some latitude in timeframe, then. _Maybe he doesn't want me dead after all._

"Condition?"

 _"Irrelevant."_

 _In that case._ "Sir." He didn't hesitate. "There is one way to get the job done. For certain." _And without compromising my cover with SHIELD any further._ Sitwell, with his puling demands, was a crawling _worm_.

One heartbeat. Two.

 _"… Call in the Asset."_


	3. Urich's Article

**DELETED SCENE 3: URICH's ARTICLE**

* * *

 _Karen cleared her throat. "I used to work in the financial department at Union Allied. It was a construction company that oversaw the bulk of the government contracts for the Harlem reconstruction."_

 _That got her a blank stare._

 _Karen blinked. "From the Harlem Terror?"_

 _Steve shook his head, blue eyes wide._

" _It was in June, 2010."_ It was on every news channel, like 9/11 all over again. _Far fewer casualties than the attacks on the Towers, but mostly civilian rather than military, and completely terrifying._ And impossible to miss. _He hadn't given her a number of years, but this confirmed at least two._

" _The_ Harlem Terror _?" Steve managed. "What -"_

" _The Abomination was loose in Harlem, and the Hulk-" She caught a glimpse of his expression._ Not helping. _"And none of that means anything to you."_

" _No."_

 _She'd succeeded in alarming him, from the pallor of his skin. "I'll try to dig up a copy of the article on the_ _Bulletin_ _'s website for you."_

* * *

 **Harlem Terror**

By Ben Urich

June 5, 2010

The first Battle of Harlem was fought on September 16, 1776, between American colonists and the invading British. Outnumbered more than two to one, the Americans nonetheless outflanked their better-equipped adversaries, forcing the British to retreat to what is now West 106th Street. George Washington's first direct victory as General of the American army during the Revolutionary War occurred in Harlem.

Since it was first settled in 1637, Harlem has been an intermittent battleground; seeing bloodshed during draft riots in the Civil War and race riots in the 1960's, as a confluence for Irish, Jewish, and Italian organized crime in the late 19th Century, and increasing crime and poverty following the de-industrialization that took place after World War II.

But yesterday, Harlem was Ground Zero for a duel – the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth.

Shortly after 11:00 PM last night, a creature began rampaging through the streets of Harlem. Where it came from is, as yet, uncertain. What this creature is remains an even more concerning question. The best eyewitness descriptions and photography put it at approximately eighteen feet in height, humanoid in shape, with skin the color of old concrete. Bony spurs protrude from its spine, elbows, and ankles. Most frighteningly, it is capable of laughter and speaks English – suggesting that it might have once been human.

If that is true, then it is now an abomination.

For almost a full half-hour after its initial appearance, this Abomination wreaked havoc – using unbelievable strength to shred cars, tear into buildings, and dig through streets. Fires erupted from ruptured gas lines. With disturbing intelligence, the Abomination battered at fire hydrants – causing high-pressure streams to create barriers against the running crowds, and decreasing water pressure from the mains used by firefighters to combat the many blazes that sprang to life in its wake.

In this hellish nightmare of fire and death, only a few people noticed a figure falling from the sky. When the body hit, the force of the impact tunneled a crater eight feet deep into West 125th Street. The hand that reached out of this crater, however, was green.

In front of the Apollo Theater, the Abomination clashed with the Hulk. Standing at – only! – twice the height of a man, with easily four times the mass and unmistakable green skin, the Hulk also boasts an almost incomprehensible strength that allowed him to break a police car in half with only two blows of his fist. The Hulk has a full head of black hair, and but for his size and color, is in contrast with the Abomination in that he is more recognizably human.

The two fought for mere minutes before the Abomination kicked the Hulk off him – and into a building two blocks away. When the Abomination continued his rampage, a US Army helicopter – reportedly carrying General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross – attempted to intervene. The Abomination set his sights on the aircraft, undisturbed by its mounted machine gun, and was seen leaping high enough to snag the undercarriage. Moments later, the Hulk reappeared, attempting to pull the Abomination from the helicopter.

The helicopter, the Abomination, and the Hulk went down in a long-disused section of Harlem between West 130th and 131st Streets.

The US Army will not confirm what happened there, though the harrowing roars emitted by the Abomination and the Hulk ceased entirely not long after. A statement issued through the offices of General Ross claim that the situation is contained, and that the threat from both creatures is over.

The people of Harlem are left to recover in the wake of an attack that is unlike and unrivalled by any other in our nation's history. One-hundred and eighty-seven people have died. Hundreds more are hospitalized, overwhelming the capabilities of the neighborhood's emergency response teams. The last of the fires was confirmed extinguished only nineteen minutes before these words were typed. Preliminary estimates put the damage to infrastructure and property in the hundreds of millions.

In the midst of mourning, the citizens of Harlem and New York – and indeed, the world – have questions that demand answers. What are these creatures? Where did they come from? What is the US Army's involvement – particularly that of General Ross, whose offices are controlling the Army's public relations regarding the Battle of Harlem?

Answers are certainly not forthcoming from the government or the military, none of which are willing to comment on what they have classified as an "ongoing investigation into the root cause of the Harlem Incident." But that does not mean that we are left without any answers at all.

While there is no record of the Abomination having appeared elsewhere on the planet prior to the Duel of Harlem, the same is not true for the green-skinned Hulk. Only three days ago, on June 2, WHiH World News reported a violent clash between forces of the US military and an unknown adversary on the campus of Culver University in Willowsdale, Virginia. Student Jack McGee, witness to what is now being called the Battle at Culver University, described the military's adversary as a massive, green-skinned humanoid – "an incredible Hulk."

Nor is this the first time the Hulk has appeared at Culver, if rumor is to be believed. In 2005, an explosion destroyed Culver's Lawrence Laboratory, hub of the university's biotechnology department. Three were killed, two more injured. The lab remained closed for a year following the tragic accident. No further details were verified to the press at that time; rumors from students of a large, green-skinned man running from the campus were dismissed as hysteria or toxic fume exposure.

Lawrence Laboratory, named for Nobel Laureate and cyclotron inventor Ernest Lawrence, was historically the home of Culver University's physics department. However, in the four years preceding the explosion, the US Army under General Ross was working out of Lawrence Laboratory, and the physics staff had been reduced to make way for experts in microbiology, neurobiology, molecular biology, and computational biology. While their work was classified, recent history might again provide us with clues as to the nature of the research taking place.

On September 13, 2001, General Ross revived a long-defunct military initiative known as the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project. Like many military projects, even the name is vague and provides no information about the work undertaken under its auspices. What can be verified, is that this Project was working out of Culver's Lawrence Laboratory from 2001 until the 2005 explosion – though by that time the Project was almost completely defunded by the Army. It is still in existence today, however, and operating with just-above minimal funding – as it has been since the 2005 explosion.

The Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project first appears as a budget item under the Army's Infantry Weapons Development Program in 1943. No explanation can be found in any public papers; its research was classified. It followed a brief initiative called Operation: Rebirth, which was dissolved in 1942 as a failure, and has variously been associated with other short-lived, classified programs such as Weapons Plus. The only notable thing about the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project is its connection to famed weapons developer Howard Stark, and the fact that the Project was fully defunded in the Infantry Weapons Development Program's first quarter 1992 budget, following Stark's death in late 1991.

We know that General Ross was spearheading the Bio-tech Force Enhancement Project at Culver University from 2001 until the first known appearance of the Hulk in the 2005 explosion at Culver's Lawrence Laboratory. From 2005 to present, the Bio-tech Force Enhancement Project continued to run under General Ross with minimal funding, while rumors of the Hulk popped up across the Western Hemisphere from Canada to Brazil. Three days ago the Hulk was definitively sighted at Culver University once more, battling with US Army infantry; General Ross's involvement is unconfirmed but rumors suggest he was present. Then, yesterday's Duel in the streets of Harlem, between a never-before-seen Abomination and the comparatively diminutive Hulk, following which General Ross's office has once again undertaken the responsibility of issuing statements to the public.

Whether or not the Hulk and the Abomination are the result of the Army's Bio-tech Force Enhancement Project remains to be seen. Certainly there is no proof to that effect, despite the circumstantial evidence supporting a connection. What is proven is that, beyond further rumors of the Hulk fleeing Harlem, the Abomination has not been sighted since it disappeared in the vicinity of West 130th and 131st Streets just before 1:00 AM this morning. The immediate crisis does appear to be over, as General Ross's office has stated.

Now Harlem is left to pick up the pieces, mourn its losses, and learn to live again in a world profoundly different than that of yesterday.

President Ellis has scheduled a press conference to address the Harlem Terror, which will be broadcast at 10:00 AM on all major news networks.


End file.
